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The Ludwig van Beethoven Diamond

Things that make you go, “Hrmmmm”. Purple ketchup, Ugg boots with mini-skirts, and diamonds made out of people. They all make you pause and wonder just what exactly the world is coming to. However, here they are, and hopefully, at least for the first two, they won’t stick around for much longer. But it seems that the latter is here to stay, and I just can’t figure out whether it’s really cool, or really disturbing. I guess I’d much rather wear Uncle Tim on my finger than have him immortalized on my mantle, at least as a diamond he’d be pretty. Now, if you recall, we once brought you a similar story about a grieving dog lover who immortalized her beloved pooch Mack by turning him into a diamond, and that was unusual enough. But this one. Wow.

Photo: LifeGem

It’s strange enough to imagine wearing a beloved relative. And now I’m imagining a man strapping his Aunt Mildred to his back and carrying her around. But anyways, how would you feel to wear a diamond made from someone else, someone you’d never even met? Well thanks to our friends at LifeGem, we now have to confront that very problem. You see, they’ve decided to immortalize famed composer Ludwig van Beethoven in a diamond.

Now, you might be asking how they got ahold of dear Bethoven’s carbon atoms because, well, he’s been dead a really long time and I’m pretty sure it’s eight kinds of illegal to do some carbon grave robbing. But the creators of LifeGem were in luck because there exists in this world an institution called the University Archives in Connecticut. There, in addition to lots of dusty old books I’m sure, they have a collection of famous hair. Wait… can we just back up here a second? Collection of famous hair? How exactly do you start such a collection? Do you skulk behind famous barbershops, accost Brad Pitt in a dark alley with a set of clippers? I mean, a collection of hair? That’s just gross.

But hair collection aside, LifeGem proceeded to extract carbon from the famous follicles and turn it into a blue, round brilliant diamond weighing in at .56cts. They named the gem, surprise surprise, the Ludwig van Beethoven LifeGem diamond, say that one five times fast, and listed it on eBay. So how much does a diamond made of a famous person go for these days? Well this particular stone was listed at a staggering $1,000,000. Yes, that’s a cool million for some fossilized carbon that for all we know came from a dead guy’s tooth, a very famous tooth, but still. And then a horrifying thought. How are they sure that the hair in question actually came from old Beethoven? It’s pretty certain that the person that did the clipping is dead, along with probably quite a few of the original owners. Who’s to say that it’s not hair from famed chimney sweep Ludwig von Bartie instead? Ok, so there’s no Ludwig von Bartie, but it is disturbing to think about. But at least the buyers can comfort themselves with the knowledge that the money they spent on whomever it is they are sporting went to underprivileged children. So at least there’s that.